SILENCE! #184
April 20th, 2016
“What’s the podcast full of chat
That’s made for you and me?
It’s S-I-L-E-N-C-E!
Hey there, Hi there, ho there you’re as welcome as can be
It’s S-I-L-E-N-C-E!
SIII-I-LENCE! SIII-I-LENCE!
Forever hold our graphic novels high, high, high!
SII-I-ILEN…”
*ca-click* BLAM!
Ahhhh. Silence.
<ITEM> Why what’s this? Not just one, but TWO special guests on this special guesticode? For sheezy! None other than old skool classic Mindless One, Botswana Beast, but returning sparring partner Maid of Nails are here, joining ol’ Gary Lactus and The Beast Must Die for this latest installment of 4-colour digressions and mega-ramblings.
<ITEM> Sponsorship, maybe some cat stuff and of course the usual digressions.
<ITEM> A Reviewniverse 4-way?? Yikes, this one’s gonna hurt! Tackled are Grant Morrison’s Wonder Woman: Earth One and it’s a nice deep dive that also takes on Sensation Comics, Beto Hernandez, BDSM, Feminism, Nameless, Doom Patrol, and more. Then we get into The Discipline, Silver Surfer, Gerber and Golden’s Mister Miracle, Judge Dredd, John Wagner, Pat Mills, 2000AD, Garth Ennis’ Enemy Ace, Punisher War Zone, Marvel Unlimited and more more more
So pull up your trousers, get out of the flower beds and settle down for the warming aural-soothe of this latest, greatest edition of SILENCE!
click to download SILENCE!#184
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This edition of SILENCE! is proudly sponsored by the greatest comics shop on the planet, DAVE’S COMICS of Brighton. It’s also sponsored the greatest comics shop on the planet GOSH! Comics of London.
April 20th, 2016 at 6:46 pm
I was all set to comment before the Comet Boots mention, I swear – surreal and lovely, thanks Gary and the Beast.
Massively enjoyable episode, particularly the pun-revelations and 2000AD chat, which made me sorry I’ve never ever got into it in the slightest.
April 20th, 2016 at 7:00 pm
Ro-Jaws and Hammerstein. I did not ‘get’ that pun for yeeeeears ‘cos I am a daftie.
King Faraday is an EXCELLENT name, even though it is spoiled slightly by being a pun.
Great episode, incidentally! Nice bunch of guests. A pleasant way to spend an hour and a half!
Loved the Wonder Woman talk, and am glad someone else thinks the art is Glandy. Bulleteer really does feel like a better use of Paquette’s art, and also a better exploration of feminist themes.
It’s the only Morrison comic I suspect I’ll get rid of in my next comics purge. Think the only other one of his I’ve got rid of is Happy?
That Tim Truman comic about the post-apocalyptic trucker sounds good. Gonna look that one up, eh.
April 21st, 2016 at 12:18 am
John Wagner won’t die, he’ll just keep getting slower and slower
April 22nd, 2016 at 4:50 pm
Excellent team-up episode, folks. Great to hear Maid of Nails and Botswana Beast in the mix.
Names pun wise- I remember a terrible one-off villain in Iron Man called ‘Freak Quincy’. That one took me a while. Ro-Jaws and Hammerstein took me years to notice as well. I remember as a youngun, finally realising all the puns in the Asterix books, Chief Vitalstatistix being a favourite.
Glad to hear Punisher War Zone receive such a glowing review. It’s one of my favourite shit films. I thought Ray Stephenson was the best cast Punisher yet, and yes he does punch someone’s head right in like an old hat. Jigsaw is so bad. I really need to see it again now.
Interesting thoughts on the life expectancy of Dredd. It did feel like Kraken would be his successor for a time, and there are similarities to the idea that new upstart Azrael would be taking over as Batman (yet the Dredd stuff predates that by a couple of years). I’d imagine all they’d do is pop out another clone, no? Or pull some sort of Ben Reilly trickery.
I’d be well up for a couple of hours of ‘Reviewniverse’ theme at the Barbican or something.
April 23rd, 2016 at 1:09 pm
I caught myself singing the Reviewniverse theme in a Fred Schneider voice the other day, while doing the dishes. Fucksake.
Gonna have to give Punisher: War Zone a rewatch as well. I don’t remember anything about it, at all.
April 24th, 2016 at 5:48 pm
Dredd has just ‘died’ in the latest prog. To be fair, it’s a plausible death if real but given it’s by Micheal Carroll not John Wagner, it seems unlikely.
Carroll’s a pretty good writer but like all other substitute Dredd writers he admires the character too much and keeps needing to show us how badass he is; his stories often have jarring moments in them such as other judges not being aware of who he is (despite him single handedly saving the city dozens of times over the years).
That said, John Wagner sets the bar incredibly high. He’s pretty much the only creator who started in the 70s who’s still continuing to sometimes do fresh surprising stuff today. His recent story about America’s daughter, Judge Beeny, being elected onto the council of senior judges was one of the most quietly uplifting stories I’ve ever read.
April 24th, 2016 at 6:10 pm
Another nice pod. Weird bit of coincidence with that Mr. Miracle run, too. Maid of Nails mentioned the Enemy Ace comic by Russ Heath. Russ Heath inked Golden on at least on those Mr. Miracle books mentioned. It’s one of those penciller/inker teams shouldn’t work but does, sort of like Bill Sienkewicz over Joe Aparo, or Kyle Baker over John Byrne.
April 24th, 2016 at 9:16 pm
Oh yeah… What was the Dredd story that Maid of Nails mentioned?
April 25th, 2016 at 12:38 pm
Hi, I know you guys have female contributors to this site, but it’s so obvious you hate women that it’s a bit sickening. I know you think you are being funny, or ironic, or whatever, but it is really foul the kind of sewerage you are spewing out. You may think you are just commenting on sexist material, but you are wallowing in it.
April 25th, 2016 at 7:04 pm
Aaron: I’m not sure where you’re getting this. I’ve seen my share of faux-ironic misogyny that hides behind “humour” to get away with denigrating and condescending to women, and have a less-than-zero-tolerance policy for this. None of the Mindless Ones have ever come off that way to me; they also don’t treat me or other women in comics/comics fandom as exceptions to some kind of misogynistic gender dynamic. If they ever did, I wouldn’t associate with them at all, let alone spend time and effort contributing to the site.
I’d also direct you to how they (and readers) responded to the brief spate of sexism from some absolute wad that greeted my first appearance on SILENCE! in the comments: http://mindlessones.com/2016/03/07/silence-179/#comments
April 25th, 2016 at 7:05 pm
Not that calling out someone else’s sexism absolves one from being sexist, but I think their words and actions in the above link are good illustrations of their attitudes regarding the issue.
April 25th, 2016 at 7:19 pm
fairplay Aaron, you got me
April 25th, 2016 at 10:56 pm
I’m curious about the illustration at the beginning of this post (a photograph of a man attempting to juggle a sword): where is it from? It seems familiar, but I can’t seem to place it…
April 25th, 2016 at 11:51 pm
It’s Al Columbia’s utterly brilliant Pim & Francie.., I should’ve credited it actually so cheers for the nudge.
April 26th, 2016 at 9:02 am
Ha! I was trolling.
April 26th, 2016 at 9:03 am
Ignore the last comment, that wasn’t me, that was someone pretending to be me.
April 26th, 2016 at 9:33 am
Nate: the Dredd story is Origins, which is kind of all over the place narratively but is a real gut-punch thematically.
April 26th, 2016 at 9:52 am
Is this Aron Petrovich actually one of the Kraken podcast members, doing a promotional tie-in for their ‘trolls’ episode?
April 26th, 2016 at 12:38 pm
Hello, gentlemen. Longtime listener here. While on my way to work this morning, I was listening to your podcast. I thought I should let you know that I am a school teacher here in the United States. In Math, whenever we are going to review something that we have covered before, I have told my class that in order to do so properly, we have to enter the Reviewniverse. I draw out two children’s names (such as “Billy and Susie”), and their names go into the Reviewniverse song opening. I have even taught them how to properly leave the Reviewniverse.
I have twenty students in my Math class. Including me, that’s twenty-one people singing the song at once. I had never thought about it being a record before I heard you speak of it this morning, but let me at least put Mr. Carter’s Math Class in for a contender.
Thank you all for your work.
April 26th, 2016 at 12:48 pm
amazing
April 26th, 2016 at 2:08 pm
Holy heck that’s wonderful! Please please please please please send us a recording of this sometime to [email protected]
April 26th, 2016 at 3:27 pm
This is the best thing I’ve ever heard
April 27th, 2016 at 12:42 am
Happy to please! So glad to know that it has been well-received.
April 27th, 2016 at 10:42 am
I am the sexist.
April 27th, 2016 at 1:45 pm
Great to hear kids in the US are being taught important skills early in life. As everyone here already knows, leaving the Reviewniverse can be incredibly dangerous if not performed correctly. Well done Jeff C!
April 27th, 2016 at 8:58 pm
Turns out after the dust had settled a bit, I *quite* liked WWEO, given the EO books are supposed to work as standalone/primers I though it was OK. It’s not Morrison Prime by a long shot but still so much better than so much of the dross that’s leaking from DC’s glands. I think once again the BonnyBairn’s colours really elevate it into being something ultra super nice to look at.
Looking forward to the Nameless HC if wife and I are ever allowed back to the UK but not sure how I feel about things being clarified though, the fugue and delirium and shit just happening kinda rocked it for me.
I’m quite sad that I’ve moved out of Dundee since mildly getting to know Botswana Beast via twitter, I’d have enjoyed buying you a pint and talking comics at you, we probably crossed paths vaguely before given the size of the place. I’ve recently been on another reread of Multiversity following your enjoyable writing about it.
Always good to hear that Black Hole is still as comedy old comics shop gold as ever, my enduring memory is the cascading and seemingly randomly ‘arranged’ back issues and the wall mounted, bagged and boarded Barb Wire Movie Special tie in that was I think £14 (and there were several copies there).
I particularly enjoyed the temporal distortion of the reviewniverse theme song this week as it appeared like some horrific displaced future echo, I can’t work out if it drowning out Beast’s chat about 17 was part of the art or not.
April 27th, 2016 at 11:18 pm
Fucking hell, yeah, that Barb Wire comic with the photo cover. The Black Hole LOVES that thing.